How are China’s new war games around Taiwan different from earlier drills?

The sixth large-scale war game since 2022, when then-Republican representative Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, has been conducted by China over two-day military exercises titled Justice Mission 2025.

As Chinese forces worked encircling Taiwan and preventing its major ports, the exercise included 10 hours of live fire drills on Tuesday.

During the Justice Mission of 2025, what took place?

According to Shi Yi, a spokesman for China’s Eastern Theatre Command, the war games started on Monday in Taiwan’s main island’s waters and airspace.

In the exercises, China used its naval destroyers, frigates, fighter planes, bombers, drones, long-range missiles, and other “mobile ground targets” and maritime targets, according to Shi.

The exercises also simulated a blockade of Keelung and Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s main ports.

According to the Eastern Theatre Command, live-fire drills were conducted on Tuesday in five locations throughout Taiwan between 8am and 6pm local time (00:00 GMT and 00:00 GMT). Long-range rockets were launched into the waters around the island by Chinese forces, according to a video the military posted on social media.

Seven rockets were fired into two drill areas around the main island, according to Taiwan’s coastguard.

Between 6 a.m. on Monday and 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense announced it had tracked 130 air sorties from Chinese aircraft, 14 naval ships, and eight “official ships.”

In the second-largest incursion of its kind since 2022, 90 of the air sorties entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), which Taipei has been monitoring land and sea for the past 24 hours.

What changes did the exercises make over the previous one?

According to Jaime Ocon, a research fellow at Taiwan Security Monitor, Justice Mission 2025 was the largest war game ever to cover the entire area since 2022.

He told Al Jazeera, referring to the area located just 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) off Taiwan’s coast, that “these zones are very, very big, especially the southern and southeast areas around Taiwan, which actually breached territorial waters.” That’s a significant improvement over previous exercises.

Contrary to previous iterations, they also made explicit efforts to block Taiwan, sending a strong message to Taipei and its unofficial allies, particularly the US and Japan.

“This is a clear example of China’s ability to carry out A2/AD – anti-access aerial denial,” Ocon said. “This shows how capable it is to prevent Taiwan from being isolated from the world and for other countries like Japan, the Philippines, or the United States to not directly intervene,” he added.

A blockade would have an impact on Taiwan’s nearly all of its energy needs, including its dependence on imported commodities like natural gas and coal. Through the Taiwan Strait, it would also alter important international shipping routes.

The drills were similar to those conducted after Pelosi’s visit in August 2022, according to Alexander Huang, director-general of Taiwan’s Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies.

It actually impacted international civil aviation and maritime shipping routes as a result of this drill. They had previously tried to avoid that, but this time they actually slowed down the air and sea traffic,” he claimed.

Additionally, the drills put pressure on Taiwan’s maritime and transportation links with those between Kinmen and Matsu islands, which are more close to the Chinese mainland.

Why are the exercises now being staged in China?

China has a history of conducting military exercises to express its anger toward Taiwan and its allies, but since Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, they have increased.

Beijing cites Taiwan as a province and claims that the US is interfering with its internal affairs by continuing to sell weapons to Taipei and supporting its “separatist” government under the leadership of President William Lai Ching-te.

Washington does not officially acknowledge Taiwan, but it has made a pledge to support Taipei’s defense in accordance with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and the 1982 Six Assurances.

Washington approved a record-breaking $ 11 billion arms sale to Taiwan just days before the Justice Mission 2025.

The drills were “a necessary step to safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday. They were also a “punitive and deterrent action against separatist forces who seek “taiwan independence” through military expansion. In connection with the arms sale, Beijing sanctioned 30 US businesses and individuals.

Additionally, experts claim that China and Japan had a separate but related diplomatic row.

In November, Sanae Takaichi, the prime minister of Japan, made the remarks that an attack on Taiwan would be a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. She claimed that a scenario like this would allow Japan to use its “right of collective self-defence” and to deploy its military legally.

How are the drills being conducted in Taiwan?

On Tuesday, Taiwan warned that more than 300 international flights could be delayed as a result of flight rerouting during the live-fire drills and on average, cancelled more than 80 domestic flights.

An undisclosed number of naval vessels had also been deployed nearby, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry, and the coastguard had been monitoring the exercises near the outlying islands. Taiwan also kept an eye on all incursions into its ADIZ, including those into the Taiwan Strait, coastal China, and nearby waters.

The highly provocative actions of Beijing [also pose a significant security risk and disruption, according to Defense Minister Wellington Koo in a statement on Tuesday.

Koo referred to the exercises as “cognitive warfare” that sought to “deplete Taiwan’s combat capabilities through a combination of military and non-military means, and to create division and conflict within Taiwanese society through a method of sowing discord.”

What was the US’s response to the drills?

Donald Trump, the president of the United States, has so far kept quiet about the military exercises, telling reporters he is “not worried.”

Trump responded to Reuters’ request to discuss the exercises, saying, “I have a great relationship with President Xi, but he hasn’t told me anything about it.” He continued, “I don’t think he’s going to be doing it,” presumably referring to the possibility of real military action attacking Taiwan.

Trump may not say much about the Justice Mission 2025 exercises because he wants to meet with President Xi Jinping in April to discuss a US-China trade deal, according to William Yang, a senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group. According to Yang, “the US response is a diplomatic tactic to ensure that the US response does not immediately damage the US-China temporary trade truce.”

He said, “I think it’s quite consistent with how he and his administration have been handling the Taiwan issue by trying to de-prioritize making public statements.”

Source: Aljazeera